Research Publications (Food Safety)

Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) is the primary pathogen of chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs) in chickens. In poultry production, antibiotics are mostly used to prevent and control MG infection, but the drug resistance and residue problems caused by them cannot be ignored. Glycyrrhizic acid (GA) is derived from licorice, a herb traditionally used to treat various respiratory diseases.

Many types of anionic pollutants exit in the aqueous environment including the group containing halogen (F-, I-, IO3-, BrO3-, ClO3−), the group containing heavy metals (VO43−, AsO33−, CrO42−, AsO43−), and eutrophic elements resulting from agricultural, aquacultural, urban and industrial activities (NO3−, PO43−).

Cadmium (Cd) toxicity and nitrogen (N) deposition are two major environmental stresses which can affect plant growth. It’s less clear that how the combined Cd accumulation and N deposition affect the male and female plants of dioecious species. The aim of the present study was to detect sex-specific responses to Cd stress and simulated N deposition in one-year-old male, female and hermaphrodite seedlings of Morus alba.

This study developed a quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe (QuEChERS) procedure for determining seven pyrethroid pesticide residues in tea, cucumber, and tomato via high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC–MS/MS). The overall average recoveries of the seven pyrethroids were 72%–104% (relative standard deviation (RSD); 2.0%–16.1%, 89%–109% (RSD; 0.7%–17.3%), 82%–110% (RSD; 1.6%–17.1%) for tea, cucumber and tomato, respectively.

Vegetables and fruits may contain pesticides, leading to several health complications after long-term exposure. The food byproducts of soybean and camellia seed cake contain abundant saponins but are poorly utilized. This study aimed to investigate the capacity of soybean byproduct-extracted saponins (SBE) and camellia seed cake-extracted saponins (CSE) to remove pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables.

Long-term exposure to environmental arsenic has been associated with many chronic diseases, including several cancers, and diabetes. Urinary studies have implicated arsenic speciation as an important risk factor, however, such associations have not been replicated using toenail samples: a relatively new biosample for estimating long-term internal dose-exposure to arsenic.

Laccase is a novel target for fungicides. We previously developed a new fungicide, 4-chlorocinnamaldehyde thiosemicarbazide (PMDD-5Y), as a laccase inhibitor. The introduction of active groups of natural products into the framework of a pesticide molecular structure is an effective method for discovering active lead compounds, and it has applications in the discovery of new pesticides.

Transferable linezolid resistance due to optrA, poxtA, cfr and cfr-like genes is increasingly detected in enterococci associated with animals and humans globally.

Arsenic is a human carcinogen. Data on urinary arsenic species analyses of Koreans are limited. This study evaluated the arsenic exposure level, contributing factors, and health effects in Korean adults. Dietary intake information and urine samples were obtained from 2044 participants.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are released into the environment from a wide range of sources. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of the PCBs extracted from the Zhanjiang mangrove sediments on the immune function of zebrafish.

Information on the co-occurrence of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and metal resistance genes (MRGs) among bacterial communities in drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs) is scarce. This study characterized ARGs and MRGs in five well-maintained DWDSs in Finland. The studied DWDSs had different raw water sources and treatment methods. Two of the waterworks employed artificially recharged groundwater (ARGW) and used no disinfection in the treatment process.

More and more attention has been paid to the improved QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe) method in dealing complex sample matrices, especially for the study of QuEChERS adsorbents.

Stormwater runoff samples were collected from five different land use sites (gas station, city road, campus, park, and residential) in a precipitation event on May 22nd, 2017, from a small suburban area (5 km × 2 km) of the city of Beijing, China.

Pesticides are currently extensively used in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and environmental hygiene, and their residues have become a global environmental problem, which can easily form combined pollution with heavy metals.

Background Cereal grains are an important for the nutrition of both humans and animals, and contribute to the nutrition cycle in different ways. Chemical contaminants are important to be monitored in food due to their direct effects on human health.

Background Exposure of Apis mellifera to neonicotinoid insecticides is one of the factors attributed to the recent decline in A. mellifera populations resulting in economic and ecological losses due to loss of pollination services. Honeybees can get exposed to neonicotinoids like imidacloprid directly in the field at the time of application as well as during consumption of pollen and nectar from treated plants.

Background At present, plant growth regulators (PGRs) are widely used in agricultural and forestry production. PGRs, like traditional pesticides, have certain toxicities. Naively excessively applying them will cause the acute and chronic poisoning of humans and animals and potentially harm human health.

Cadmium is toxic to the kidney through mechanisms involving oxidative stress and inflammation. We studied reciprocal crosstalk among the oxidative stress, inflammation, and the nuclear Nrf2 pathway in cadmium-induced nephrotoxicity on HK-2 human renal proximal tubular epithelial cells.

More than 80% terrestrial plants establish mutualistic symbiosis with soil-borne arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). These fungi not only significantly improve plant nutrient acquisition and stress resistance, but also mitigate heavy metal phytotoxicity, Furthermore, the extraradical mycorrhizal mycelia can form common mycorrhizal networks (CMNs) that link roots of multiple plants in a community.

Electrospinning has the advantages of simple manufacturing equipment, a low spinning cost, wide range of spinnable materials, and a controllable mild process, which can continuously fabricate submicron or nanoscale ultrafine polymer fibers without high temperature or high pressure. The obtained nanofibrous films may have a large specific surface area, unique pore structure, and easy-to-modify surface characteristics.

A solid-phase micro extraction (SPME) coupled high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) strategy was explored for trace concentrations of dicamba, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), and picloram residues simultaneous determination from complex matrix of food samples.

Cadmium (Cd) is one of the most common environmental pollutants, which has a long biological half-life. Maternal Cd-exposure in the natural environment causes steroidogenesis defects resulting in spermatogenesis disorder in male offspring.

This study evaluates state-of-the-art machine learning models in predicting the most sustainable arsenic mitigation preference. A Gaussian distribution-based Naïve Bayes (NB) classifier scored the highest Area Under the Curve (AUC) of the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (0.82), followed by Nu Support Vector Classification (0.80), and K-Neighbors (0.79).

Risk assessment of soil metal pollution based on total metal contents might give overestimates by neglecting the bioaccessibility of the pollutants to soil biota. Physiologically-based extraction tests (PBET) are in vitro methods for evaluation of bioaccessibility of soil pollutants.

Imazethapyr (IM) is a chiral herbicide with two enantiomers, with a much stronger herbicidal effect of R-IM than S-IM. Pesticide residues are a common problem, and multi-generation cultivation method can reveal the consequences of long-term pesticide residues. Methods This study verified the effects of R-IM on the growth of Arabidopsis thaliana and rhizosphere microorganisms by treating A.